Arthur B. McDonald joins Board of Directors at Perimeter Institute

Mike Lazaridis, Chair of the Board of Directors of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, is pleased to announce the appointment of Arthur B. McDonald to Perimeter’s Board. For over twenty years, Art McDonald has been the Director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) - one of Canada’s most ambitious physics experiments. Working in the observatory, located two kilometres below the surface in the Creighton nickel mine, he led a team of international collaborators in discovering that elementary sub-atomic particles, called neutrinos, change from one type to another while traveling from the sun to the earth. The SNO experiment also confirmed that neutrinos have a tiny but nonzero mass. Art McDonald holds the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics at Queen’s University. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the 2011 Henry Marshall Tory Medal from the Royal Society of Canada and the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics alongside researcher Yoji Totsuka, and he was also named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2007. Professor McDonald is now working on the SNO+ experiment at the international SNOLAB, researching an accurate measurement of neutrino mass and helping to explain the processes that generate matter in the early universe. He is also involved with DEAP-3600, a new international experiment searching for dark matter particles. “We are deeply honoured to have Art McDonald joining Perimeter's Board of Directors,” said Neil Turok, Director of Perimeter Institute, “He is both a world-renowned scientist and a true Canadian pioneer, having demonstrated with the SNO project that Canada can be one of the world's pre-eminent locations for groundbreaking discoveries in particle astrophysics. Art's expertise and wise guidance will be invaluable to Perimeter as we continue to grow."

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Perimeter Institute is the world’s largest research hub devoted to theoretical physics. The independent Institute was founded in 1999 to foster breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of our universe, from the smallest particles to the entire cosmos. Research at Perimeter is motivated by the understanding that fundamental science advances human knowledge and catalyzes innovation, and that today’s theoretical physics is tomorrow’s technology. Located in the Region of Waterloo, the not-for-profit Institute is a unique public-private endeavour, including the Governments of Ontario and Canada, that enables cutting-edge research, trains the next generation of scientific pioneers, and shares the power of physics through award-winning educational outreach and public engagement.